LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.
TO
THE GENEROUS FRIENDS OF SCIENCE
IN
BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE,
THROUGH WHOSE LIBERALITY THE TRAVELS
HEREIN DESCRIBED WERE MADE,
THIS VOLUME
Is Respectfully Dedicated.
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS AT BATAVIA.
PREFACE.
The object of my voyage to Amboina was simply to re-collect the shells figured in Rumphius’s “Rariteit Kamer,” and the idea of writing a volume of travels was not seriously entertained until I arrived at Batavia, and, instead of being forbidden by the Dutch Government to proceed to the Spice Islands, as some of my warmest friends feared, I was honored by His Excellency, the Governor-General of “the Netherlands India,” with the order given on page 40.
Having fully accomplished that object, I availed myself of the unexampled facilities to travel afforded me in every part of the archipelago, and all except the first six chapters describe the regions thus visited.